


The Eyes of Dragons

by Triscribe



Series: Cousins at Arms [1]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Development, Dinui'ad, Every Clone Gets a Hug In This House, Family, Fialleril's Amatakka, Fluff, Next Generation, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Post-Order 66, Tatooine Slave Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24495748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triscribe/pseuds/Triscribe
Summary: “Ahsoka...”“What? You said we should make sure more of the Amavikkan are familiar with how to operate our equipment, including the aircraft.”Anakin shot her a flat look, the effect of which was pretty thoroughly dampened by the blonde baby being bounced in his arms. "Yeah, *older* Amavikkan."“What, just because he’s a kid Atru isn’t allowed to learn?”“He’s five, Snips.”---The aftermath of Tatooine's liberation from slavery is full of dragons, Jedi, and new beginnings.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Cousins at Arms [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2175468
Comments: 7
Kudos: 251





	The Eyes of Dragons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/gifts).



> I have been forcibly dragged back into the Star Wars fandom. Wrote this in one sitting; may or may not post similar one-shots concerning other characters later, depends on the kind of reception I get.
> 
> Most of the Amatakka words and Amavikka culture belong to Fialleril, master worldbuilder. A few names and things I made up as needed, but hopefully did a good enough job you can't tell the difference!
> 
> (Fia, if you happen to see this and read it, I hope you're doing well and don't mind me messing about in your sandbox again. It's such lovely sand, after all.)
> 
> -Tri

_White dragons._

That was all Atru could think to call them in his mind. Huddled up with Nittu in a makeshift cave of fallen walls, he stared out at the courtyard of the palace, watching with wide eyes. Humanoids in white armor painted with blue or yellow constantly moved past, shooting, shouting, some hurrying in the other direction with wounded slaves held in their arms.

And it was only slaves they carried away - the cooling corpses of masters, overseers, and bodyguards still littered the courtyard. One of them sprawled mere steps away from Atru and Nittu’s hiding place - a scarred old weequay who’d been in the middle of beating them when the first explosions began. His wrinkled face remained stuck in an expression of shock, fingers still grasping at the blaster hole through his chest.

One the one hand, Atru felt a little ill at the sight. On the other...

_Bentu Depuraak. The Reckoning of the Masters._

“...know there were a couple kids right around here - has anyone double checked the rubble?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no.”

Two dragons moved nearby. Atru could just see their boots from the cave: white and blue, white and yellow. His breath caught in his throat.

Would they come closer? Would they see him and Nittu? His arms tightened around the smaller boy - it was his job to keep him out of trouble, keep him from getting hurt. Maybe the dragons would leave them alone, but what if they didn’t?

“I’ll check with Ahsoka - if she’s finished clearing out the lower levels with the rest of Torrent, maybe the Force can tell her if anyone’s buried under here.”

“Alright, then we- wait. Vod, look.”

Between one heartbeat and the next, the opening of the little cave became filled by armor. Atru cried out when a hand reached for him, and instantly it flinched away.

“Osi’kyr,” the dragon muttered, pulling back a bit from the entrance. “Easy, little one, it’s okay - we aren’t going to hurt you, the slavers are all gone.”

“Shove up, Cody.” The second dragon crouched beside the first, and pulled off his helmet marked with swooping lines, revealing a human face. “Amavikkan?”

Atru blinked. After a moment, he slowly nodded.

The man in dragon armor grinned. “Ek masa nu Rex, ka. Nuk ek upanda, Cody.”

Glancing between the two of them as the second dragon removed his helmet as well, Atru didn’t doubt they were brothers - they looked just alike. “...ek masa nu Atru Sikataku, ka. Nuk ek upani, Nittu Atruaberatu.”

The man nodded, glancing at the other. “Their names are Atru and Nittu. Check with the medics, see if anyone by the name of Suncaller or Windsong’s been seen to-” Even as he said it, though, Atru started shaking his head.

“Ekte masa ekte.” The man sagged, his eyes softening.

“Saekeppa,” he murmured. _I offer my sorrow._ “Keekta-du?” When Atru hunched his shoulders, the man sat back on his heels. “They named themselves. Don’t know where they came from - probably sold too young to remember.”

The other man muttered the same strange word as before. Most likely a curse, if his pained expression was anything to go by. “Are they hurt at all? Stuck?”

Atru shook his head. When the man who’d been speaking Amatakka offered a hand, he carefully took it, and let himself and Nittu get gently tugged out into the open air. Armored arms wrapped around his back and under his legs, scooping the boy up. He had to let go of Nittu at that point, as the other man lifted him in the same way. For the first time since being found, the smaller child made a noise, whining softly as he buried his face in the crook of clothed neck and armored shoulder.

The man holding him froze, before cautiously rubbing and hand up and down Nittu’s back.

“He goes to sleep if you scratch his hair,” Atru stated. Both men blinked, before the one holding him barked out a laugh.

“You heard the kid, vod,” he chuckled. “Might make your life easier.” With that, he turned to start walking out of the courtyard, and Atru watched over his shoulder as the other man listened to his advice, black covered fingers combing through Nittu’s tightly coiled locks.

-Dragons-

An hour later, Atru learned where Rex had gotten his Amatakka from.

A tall man dressed in black robes and armor strode into the tent they’d settled in, Atru on Rex’s lap and Nittu still asleep on Cody’s shoulder. The newcomer looked them both over before snorting.

“Now I know what side-tracked you two,” he muttered.

“To be fair, sir, the time had already come for us to get out of the way of Speaker Banai’s relief forces,” Rex replied. “And you’ve said yourself, once the fighting’s done with, our main job becomes reassuring the Amavikkan that they’re safe.”

The man still rolled his eyes, but smiled when he looked down to meet Atru’s curious gaze. “Alright, so who is this little guy, then?”

“Atru Suncaller. Found him and Nittu over there hiding in some rubble from the courtyard’s walls. They don’t seem inclined to trust anyone who can’t speak Amatakka, so Cody and I are keeping an eye on them.” Or at least, _Rex_ was keeping an eye on the other three - two minutes after sitting down with Nittu resting on him, Cody had likewise dozed off. Apparently he didn’t get nearly enough sleep, according to the stories Rex shared with Atru in the time since.

The newcomer seemed to already be aware of that, as he gave Rex a knowing glance before focusing on Atru again. He touched a hand to his lips, then his heart - the traditional greeting between the Mother’s Children. “Ek masa nu Anakin Ekkreth, ka.”

Atrua sat up a little straighter.

“Te akinu ikkeltinan?” He asked. _You brought the dragons?_

The Rain-Bringer Skywalker smiled, wide and fierce and sharp. “Ek akinu an-umakkar.” _I brought the storm._

-Dragons-

Eventually, Rex and Cody needed to return to their work, and Atru found himself left with Nittu in a section of tents given over to the freed slaves. “We’ve got medics with scanners who’re removing the detonation chips,” Anakin explained, kneeling in front of them. “But until yours are out, you can’t risk going beyond the palace transmitter’s range, okay?”

Atru nodded.

“We’ll be around, if you need anything,” Rex added, briefly resting a hand on Atru’s head. “Or you can go to any of our brothers, we’re all here to help.”

Another, slower nod. When the three of them left, he took Nittu’s hand and wandered the tents until they found Eteru. The older girl sat against an empty crate, eyes closed and face turned up towards the sky, her hands lying empty of knitting for possibly the first time in years.

“Is he really one of us?” Atru asked her. “Skywalker? Or is he lukkanal?”

Eteru smiled without opening her eyes. “He wasn’t freeborn, I know that much.”

“How?”

“Said too many things, about adjusting, finding ways to prove to ourselves we’ve become kol-depuan.”

Atru felt a thrill race through his veins at that: _kol-depuan. Unfettered, unchained._ He’d only heard the term in stories, spoken wistfully by older slaves. “And the dragons? Only one of them knows Amatakka.”

“Only one’s been around Skywalker often enough to learn it,” Etreru replied, sounding unconcerned. “Others know phrases, the important words. They’ll learn more, if some of them really stay to help like they say - or if some of us go with them.”

“Go where?”

Eteru lifted her chin a bit higher. “To the stars, Atru. To fight other Depuran, to free other Amavikkan, to bring about Bentu Depuraak across the Outer Rim.”

Awed, Atru looked upwards as well. In the evening light, he could make out two of the moons, green Tenarakin and blue Enchuni, but no stars, not quite yet. _Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it isn’t there,_ a voice from deep in his memory whispered. _Don’t be afraid to believe._

The boys sat there for a long while, until Nittu’s stomach rumbled and he made a quiet whine. Eteru didn’t seem inclined to move any time soon, so they left her be in order to go search for dinner.

-Dragons-

People who weren’t dragons or Amavikkan appeared the next day, with replacement food and water and medical supplies. Atru watched from around a corner as Skywalker kissed a short, dark-haired woman, two babies wrapped in a carrier on her back. A twi’lek girl in a white dress with yellow patterns ran and laughed around the feet of the dragons she matched, and a togruta teenager with blue armor of her own stuck close to Rex at all times.

It was this last person who nearly tripped over Atru at midday, as he crouched in the shade of the tent where Nittu and the rest of the little children were taking their naps. She glanced between him and the tent’s entrance, before smirking. “Don’t wanna sleep with the babies, huh?”

Atru shook his head.

“Come on, I know a better spot to get out of the sun.” Seeing his hesitation, she added, “Ek masu nu Ahsoka Tano, ku.”

Atru squinted at her. “...masa, not masu.”

“Ek masa,” the togruta corrected. “And- you must be Atru, right? I haven’t seen any other wroonians around here.”

“Half,” he said, standing up and accepting her offered hand, blue fingers curling around dusky orange. “My dad was human. I think.”

“Okay. What’s your name mean, if I can ask? There’s a lot of Amatakka I don’t know yet.”

“Atru is One with the Wind,” he answered, walking quickly with her to cross the hot sands. “Sikataku is Suncaller, like our Elder Sister Leia. I picked that one,” he added, “‘Cause I don’t remember what my mom’s was.” _And because he’d always wanted to be a dragon, someone brave and unafraid to summon fire._

Ahsoka nodded. “Do you want to try and find her?”

Atru stayed quiet until they reached an actual building, and the door slid open, offering cool relief from the noonday suns. “I think- I think my mom died, and that’s why I was sold, ‘cause the man who owned us didn’t want to buy someone else to look after me.”

“Okay, then. Who looks after you here?”

He shrugged. “Eteru, sometimes. Or Ekriti, if she wasn’t busy. But I’m bigger now, so I gotta help look after Nittu.”

The door slid shut behind them, and as his eyes adjusted, Atru glanced around the small room and its furniture - most of which was occupied.

Rex paused with a blaster half-disassembled on the table in front of him, and two others in white and blue armor glanced over from their padded bench. Introductions got passed around again, and then Atru found himself settled on the floor beside Rex’s feet, Echo and Fives watching him with interest as Ahsoka flopped into a chair of her own.

In the thin layer of sand that covered the ground, Atru absently traced out the swooping lines from Rex’s helmet. “What do these mean?”

The man glanced over, and grinned. “Jaig eyes - jai’galaar are the shriek-hawks of Mandalore. They’re a symbol of battle honor that I earned in my training as a cadet.”

Atru hummed. His finger made another symbol from Rex’s armor - the repeated pattern of four lines with a fifth crossed through them. “And these?”

Gloved hands stilled on blaster components. “Tally marks. Each one represents a vod I lost.”

“Vod?”

“Sibling, in Mando’a. It’s how we address our closest brothers.”

Considering, Atru flicked his eyes towards Echo and Fives, who’d picked up datapads to fiddle with but were obviously listening in. “Are you all upandan, or are there ikkalan and attanan too?”

Rex frowned, picking up an ammo clip. “I guess some of us are sisters or siblings, but I personally haven’t met any.”

Ahsoka hummed. “Drop decided a few days ago they were agender, Rexter.”

“Ah. Well there we go, then. At least one attan.”

Atru grinned.

-Dragons-

“Hey, Atru!” Glancing up from the pot he was scrubbing with soft sand, the boy grinned and waved to Ahsoka. Beside him, Nittu looked around expectantly, but the lack of any yellow on white meant he went back to playing with his new brightly colored counting stones.

“So,” the togruta said as she crouched beside them. “How would you like to see the inside of a gunship?”

-Dragons-

“Ahsoka...”

“What? You said we should make sure more of the Amavikkan are familiar with how to operate our equipment, including the aircraft.”

Anakin shot her a flat look, the effect of which was pretty thoroughly dampened by the blonde baby being bounced in his arms. "Yeah, _older_ Amavikkan, like Ekriti.” The zeltron woman glanced up at her name, but quickly went back to studying the controls of the ship beside Hawk.

“What, just because he’s a kid Atru isn’t allowed to learn?”

“He’s _five,_ Snips.”

“Maybe six,” Atru said absently, standing on tip-toe in order to peer into the cockpit. He heard Anakin sigh, and the baby gurgle.

“One flight, up to the Endurance and back, and then he stays put, alright?”

“Alright, alright, message received loud and clear.”

-Dragons-

The day after his trip up to the _biggest spaceship ever,_ Atru was once again doing chores with Nittu at his side when Ahsoka appeared, the twi’lek girl in white and yellow skipping along at her heels.

Numa mostly spoke Ryl, with a little bit of Basic - but Amatakka was a language made up of all bits and pieces, with additions from children of more deserts than just Tatooine’s. With a few shared words, and gestures, and laughter, they communicated just fine.

Nittu really seemed to like her too, to the point that he even started to follow after Numa when she ran up to a pair of dragons. Atru nearly stopped him, but then he saw Cody, and just sat back as he watched the smaller boy run up to the man who kneeled to meet him.

-Dragons-

“We’ll be leaving tomorrow, when our Jedi arrives with his flagship,” Cody said softly, sitting beside Atru, Nittu once again asleep with his arms around the man’s neck. “I’d like to take Nittu with me.”

Atru considered it. “Alright. Will you still let him be a Windsong?”

“He’ll always be Atruaberatu,” Cody answered, “and you two can always be upandan. I follow my Jetii, but there will be times he comes back here to visit - probably right around the same times General Skywalker and his family do too.”

“And Rex?”

“And Rex, little one.”

-Dragons-

The copper-haired Jedi arrived, briefly, to hug Anakin and Ahsoka and collect his white and yellow dragons. Nittu went with them, and Numa, along with a few other Amavikkan too, including Eteru, so Atru didn’t feel too worried about the younger boy forgetting himself again.

As he watched the ships take off and slip away into the morning sky, Rex came to stand beside him. “...we’ll be heading off in a couple of days too,” the man eventually said.

Atru kept quiet.

“Going to be more Amavikkan recruits for us than the 212th, thanks to Anakin. Mechanics, mostly, a few pilots, and some who want to learn to fight.” A pause. “Would be nice to have some ad’e around, too, especially ones who might be willing to keep an eye on the little Skies.”

 _Ad’e_ meant children, Atru knew. He’d asked Ahsoka once, after dozing off in Rex’s lap while waiting out a sandstorm and vaguely hearing the man call him _ad’ika._

“...I guess I’m already the right color.”

Rex laughed. “Yeah, same shade, even.”

After a moment, Atru looked up at him. “Would I have to sleep with the others, or could I stay with you?”

The man smiled, and ruffled his hair. “I think you and I can work something out.”

-Dragons-

“MOVE!”

Firing back the way they’d come, Atru shoved Jinni Skywalker ahead of him, keeping his armored form in-between her and little Feather and the blaster shots coming towards them. Once they rounded a corner, he holstered his pistol and picked up both girls in order to sprint for shelter. The stormtroopers moved a little slower, wary of traps or return fire but well aware the old facility had no rear exit.

For the time being, Atru and his charges were trapped.

He skidded around another turn, thankfully spotting a half-open door just ahead. “Okay,” Atru panted, stopping next to it and pushing Jinni through before handing the pink toddler back to her. “Find a hiding place and _stay there,_ I need you to keep Feather quiet at all costs, okay?”

The blonde six year old nodded at him, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “Atru-?”

“I’ve got to lead them away from you, but I’ll be alright, I promise. Just _hide,_ Jinni, until you feel your dad or Aunt Soka, don’t come out for anyone but them.”

Tromping boots echoed closer. Atru dragged the rusted door closed, hurried further down the hallway, and fired at the first empty-white helmet that appeared after him. Thankfully, the intermittent lighting of the abandoned facility worked in his favor, the pursuing stormtroopers unable to tell he’d left the girls behind.

The teen swiftly lost track of time as he ran, dodged, and returned fire. Once, a blaster shot clipped his leg, not bad enough to take him out, but the pain still caused him to trip and fall against something with a sharp edge. Cursing at the blood that would make his trail easier to follow, Atru tried to put more distance in-between himself and the enemy.

That backfired when he nearly ran right into the backside of a different group of stormies.

Certain he’d just signed his own death certificate, Atru backed away from the array of blasters - only to breathe out a prayer of thanks to every divinity he knew of when the ceiling erupted with red-hot heat and the flashing of lightsabers.

As Anakin and Ahsoka tore their way through the enemy soldiers, other figures landed around Atru, dragons in white and blue and black, _death and life and freedom._ One dropped to his knees and yanked off his helmet in order to meet the teen’s exhausted gaze, hands skimming his clothes to check for injuries before stopping on either side of his face.

“You better hurry up and finish with these kriffing growth spurts so we can get your permanent armor,” Rex stated, causing Atru to laugh. He rested their foreheads together. “I deal with enough heart attacks from the Skies, ad’ika, don’t you start giving me even more.”

“I’ll do my best, Ipa,” Atru promised.

“All clear, Captain,” one of the Amavikkan dragons called. “Skywalker and Tano found the girls - permission to return topside so Ekriti and Hawk can stop panicking?”

“Permission granted,” his dad replied. He stood, carefully hauling Atru up with him, before pausing. “And someone tell Marker to have his paint set ready - we’ve got some jaig eyes that need awarding, as soon as possible.”

Cheers and whoops followed them out of the facility, and Atru grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. Rex and the other vod’e called them jai’galaar’la sur’haii’se, but to him, they would always be atre-ikkeltinan: 

The Eyes of the Dragons.


End file.
